Since that night when Mr. Daney, standing aloof in the dark vacant lot
close to the Sawdust Pile, had seen Donald McKaye, in the light cast
through the open door of Caleb Brent's cottage, take Nan Brent in his
arms and kiss her, since he had heard Nan Brent's voice apply to the
young laird of Port Agnew a term so endearing as to constitute a
verbal caress, his practical and unromantic soul had been in a turmoil
of apprehension.
It seemed to him that in old Hector he noted signs of deep mental
perturbation. Also, he told himself, he detected more shades than
lights in Donald's usually pleasant features; so, knowing full well
that which he knew and which neither The Laird nor Donald suspected
him of knowing, to wit: that a declaration of love had been made
between Nan Brent and the heir to the Tyee millions, Mr. Daney came to
the conclusion, one evening about a week after old Caleb's funeral,
that something had to be done--and done quickly--to avert the scandal
which impended. To his way of reasoning, however, it appeared that
nothing along this line was possible of accomplishment while Nan Brent
remained in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney brought to play all of his
considerable intelligence upon the problem of inducing her to leave.
Now, to render Port Agnew untenable for Nan, thus forcing her to
retreat, was a task which Mr. Daney dismissed not only as unworthy of
him but also as impossible. As a director of the Bank of Port Agnew,
he had little difficulty in ascertaining that Caleb Brent's
savings-account had been exhausted; also, he realized that the
chartering of Caleb's motor-boat, Brutus, to tow the municipal
garbage-barge to sea and return, had merely been Donald's excuse to be
kind to the Brents without hurting their gentle pride. To cancel the
charter of the Brutus now would force Nan to leave Port Agnew in order
to support herself, for Daney could see to it that no one in Port
Agnew employed her, even had anyone in Port Agnew dared run such risk.
Also, the Tyee Lumber Company might bluff her out of possession of the
Sawdust Pile. However, Donald would have to be reckoned with in either
case, and Mr. Daney was not anxious to have the weight of his young
master's anger fall on his guilty head. He saw, therefore, that some
indirect means must be employed.
Now, Mr. Daney wisely held, in contradiction to any number of people
not quite so hard-headed as he, that absence does _not_ tend to make
the heart grow fonder--particularly if sufficient hard work and worry
can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too
long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period
following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned
to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient,
while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long
sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee
Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon
Donald's young and somewhat inexperienced shoulders. In the meantime,
what with The Laird's money and the employment of a third party or
parties, it would be no trick at all to induce Nan Brent to move so
far from Port Agnew that Donald could not, in justice to his business
interests, desert those interests in order to pay his court to her.
"Dog my cats!" Mr. Daney murmured, at the end of a long period of
perplexity. "I have to force the girl out of Port Agnew, and I can
never do so while that motor-boat continues to pay her eighty dollars
a month. She cannot exist on eighty dollars a month elsewhere, but she
can manage very nicely on it here. And yet, even with that confounded
charter canceled, we're stuck with the girl. She cannot leave Port
Agnew without sufficient funds to carry her through for a while, and
she'd die before she'd accept the gift of a penny from anybody in Port
Agnew, particularly the McKayes. Even a loan from The Laird would be
construed as a roundabout way of buying her off."
Mr. Daney pondered his problem until he was almost tempted to butt his
poor head against the office wall, goat-fashion, in an attempt to
stimulate some new ideas worth while. Nevertheless, one night he
wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the
possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he announced
aloud that he would be--jiggered. Some cunning little emissary of the
devil must have crept in through his ear while he slept and planted
the brilliant idea in Mr. Daney's brain.
Eventually, Mr. Daney lay down again. But he could not go to sleep; so
he turned on the electric bedside-lamp and looked at his watch. It was
midnight and at midnight no living creature, save possibly an
adventurous or amorous cat, moved in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney dressed,
crept down-stairs on velvet feet, in order not to disturb the hired
girl, and stepped forth into the night. Ten minutes later, he was down
at the municipal garbage-barge, moored to the bulkhead of piles along
the bank of the Skookum.
He ventured to strike a match. The gunwale of the barge was slightly
below the level of the bulkhead; so Mr. Daney realized that the tide
had turned and was at the ebb--otherwise, the gunwale would have been
on a level with the bulkheads. He stepped down on the barge, made his
way aft to the Brutus, moored astern, and boarded the little vessel.
He struck another match and looked into the cabin to make certain that
no member of the barge-crew slept there. Finding no one, he went into
the engine-room and opened the sea-cock. Then he lifted up a
floor-board, looked into the bilge, saw that the water therein was
rising, and murmured,
"Bully--by heck!"
He clambered hastily back aboard the barge, cast off the mooring-lines
of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her
out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the
ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where,
when she settled, she would be hidden forever and not be a menace to
navigation. Mr. Daney watched her until she disappeared in the dim
starlight before returning to his home and so, like Mr. Pepys, to bed,
where he had the first real sleep in weeks. He realized this in the
morning and marveled at it, for he had always regarded himself as a
man of tender conscience and absolutely incapable of committing a
maritime crime. Nevertheless, he whistled and wore a red carnation in
his lapel as he departed for the mill office.